Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
Its not what they want. They want an interactive deck that can leverage skill
Where was all the spirits to hold down the Combo though?
Also KCI in a Thopter Sword deck is much different and much worse. The reason why Ironworks is so good is because of how hard it is to hate out. Graveyard hate hardly hurts them. There's a reason why Thopter Sword is nowhere to be seen
I don't think its interaction that is the best to alleviate the disadvantage of being on the draw, its powerful cantrips. Modern doesnt have turn 1 or 2 combo decks, so there is no real need for Force of Will. Legacy lives on the back of FoW and Brainstorm to find FoW. If it wasn't the case, then Brainstorm would have been banned long time ago. The funny thing is, while consistent turn 2 kills exist in Legacy, interactive strategies usually are at the top of meta in Legacy because of powerful cantrips and interaction.
Because the resources are built into the deck, the range of hands are extremely wide. On top of that, like I said before about how card advantage is so important, the fact that the solution to alleviate bad hands is to give someone card disadvantage is a bad solution imo.
Partial mulliganing like in Hearthstone might be a bad solution, but the game is extremely different. In poker, for example, if you get a bad hand you just fold, essentially losing nothing. In magic, you can literally lose the game outright from one mulligan
The Draw-Play mechanic of MTG is inherently terrible, and it all bogs down to the mulligan rule. If you are on the Draw and have to mulligan just once, its like starting the game with a giant handicap for literally no reason. I've thought this for a long time, even haver the scry mulligan rule, but the rule needs to change severely.
I haven't thought about it, and I'm not a game tester for Wizards, so I don't know the solution, but something really needs to change again for mulliganing. The fact that card advantage is not only the most important part of the game, it is also the hardest thing to obtain. The fact that bad luck/ variance that can be super common can cause a minus one card advantage out of the gate so easily, makes no sense that it is implemented in the game.
Yeah but when we discuss potential printing of cards, we always need to talk about them within the context of a potential Standard format because, at least up to this point, it's the only way Modern can get new cards. An example of this is a few pages back when we were discussing Force of Will
KTK this the Modern section I am not talking about Standard in this area stop being disingenuous.
One aggro hoser does not compare to the amount of Tron, Control and Combo haters printed over the past year. The last 5 Sets have had hosers for those decks of various quality and potency.
What do I want an aggro hoser? A Wipe that exiles or puts on the bottom of your opponent's deck with conditional cost reduction if your opponent is putting too many creatures on to the field for free or super cheap. An actual playable counter that cost 2 CMC. And/Or a creature that stops aformentioned cheap or zero cost creature cheating.
Modern is a format so wide that literally 50+ decks have the potential to be competitively viable, but let's ban out a dozen decks and alienate thousands of players so we can have a "brewer's paradise"? Thanks, but no thanks.
Saying Modern isn't a brewer's paradise (or that it hasn't been for nearly the entirety of its existence) is an insult to the format.
Yes but what percentage of the meta does each archtype occupy. I argue the meta is far too tilted towards Aggro/Tempo. WOTC does its best to cripple and keep Combo, Control and Big Mana down...Midrange was collateral damage but Aggro when is the last time an aggro hoser got printed?
I don't understand how anyone could look at the last 12 months of results and call for a ban.
Lol a Goryo's Vengeance player complaining. Maybe he/she should play a better deck. The only time I see that deck win is every once in a while on Hoogland's stream. I think I have a 100% win rate vs it, it just isnt good
Yeah I sure hope my $500-$1k deck isnt one of the "Anceint Stirrings or Lootings decks." If it happens to be, then oh well, I guess its a brewers paradise so my money that I saved up to finally finish a Modern deck wont go to waste.
I also hope that when I do brew my next combo deck, a card wont get banned again, since I guess if my combo deck is on the same level as trash-nauseum, then people wont cry about it. Or I can just go back to storm, and let people cry for a grapeshot ban like they did a year ago
I personally think the design team shouldn't care about that. Blue and counterspells have been a part of magic since the beginning. I don't get why people complaining about counterspells have any merit. Counterspell should be apart of Modern, I don't really see why it shouldn't
Also believe that Counterspell should be a part of modern. It should have been here a long time ago. If it becomes oppressive in Standard, they could just ban it.. things getting banned seem to be the norm in that format anyway.
Standard saw a lot of bans in the last two years, but that's hardly the "norm in that format" by any measure. Standard was overwhelmingly ban-free for years. Bad design decisions led to a wave of bannings which coincided in huge Standard popularity dips. Wizards will do everything possible to avoid going back to that place. As such, Wizards is never going to print a Standard-legal card designed for Modern that knowingly threatens to break Standard with the willful fallback of a ban. That's just not going to happen. Counterspell is probably safe in a Standard-legal set overall. It's just not safe with Teferi also legal. By a similar token, there might be Standard formats where something like Chain Lightning was a fair card. This current Standard format, with its dearth of viable red-based aggro, is not that format. Wizards is just doing their due diligence by avoiding such cards in Standard, and the newfound diversity and popularity of the format is a testament to this.
id take force of will over counterspell in modern any day, and twice on sunday. if the intention is to combat decks streamlined to be fast and their most powerful nut draws then you need to be hitting their turn 1-2 setup plays. a 2 cmc spell with UU casting cost isnt very well suited to do that.
a lot of the complaints about modern are typically centered on there being so many 'game 1' decks. its just phrased with stuff like 'linear'. these decks play the way they do, with a heavy emphasis on optimal sequencing of their opening hand and draws, because there isnt any fear of reprisal. no counterplay that they have to respect.
having decks that can snap off a turn 1 opal, vial, lootings, etc. suddenly they have to evaluate if their hand is functional without them, instead of how it currently is where they just know it will happen as planned.
also FoW is good against that type of stuff, but quite poor against everything else. the same cant be said for counterspell.
Unlike with Counterspell, I struggle to envision a Standard format where this card is fair and balanced. Moreover, I struggle to imagine Wizards assessing this card in any Standard and believing it's a safe design. I also think Wizards views Legacy as a format for stuff like FoW, Wasteland, Brainstorm, etc., and won't port those cards into either Modern or Standard any time soon. All three of these reasons, at least one of which is a legitimate barrier, will prevent FoW from coming to Modern. The card is just too good in any Standard format where blue is at least remotely viable. The only format where I could see FoW existing is a format where blue was deliberately stunted around FoW. But if the best example of that is the current Teferi-driven format, which still has Search, Settle, Sabotage, Niv, and a half dozen other powerful enablers, it seems more likely that any diverse (i.e. well-designed) Standard format is going to lead to a scenario where FoW is way too strong.
I could definitely see a FoW tribute that works better in Modern than in Standard. Something like:
Forcing Will3UU Instant
If you control an island, you may pay 1 life, exile a blue card from your hand, and exile a land from your graveyard rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell.
This kind of templating (tweak numbers if needed) could exist in certain Standards. Even if you think this particular version would be too easily broken by things like Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse, we could still probably figure out a way to get a FoW through Standard and into Modern with only a little bit of conversation. Revolt FoW is another option.
I didn't play during Alliances, but I actually disagree that FoW is too powerful for Standard. I only know the card in the context of powered up formats like Legacy, Vintage, and Cube. I can imagine a format where the power is lower, and control isn't even that powerful, which isn't that uncommon when it comes to Standard. FoW has major drawbacks.
The only format where I could see FoW existing is a format where blue was deliberately stunted around FoW.
And so what if it is? Right now Teferi is being designed around straight up, what's the difference if its Force of Will (or any other Blue card) instead? In my opinion, Teferi is a more powerful card than Force of Will in a format that can actually tap out on 5 and not die. At the end of the day, FoW is still just a counterspell with -1 card advantage
My list is classic draw go, but you tend to tap out a decent amount on turn 2 with thought erasure. You really want to play on your opponent's turn, and the only time you arent is either on turn 2 with thought erasure or whenever you are playing Bolas. Verix Bladewing looks like a cool idea that has been showing up more in the Dragons lists, but I might test it too. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1370143#paper
this is my current list
Broken is a termed used when the power level of something in a game is a lot higher than probably was intended, and the things that are supposed to be good against it don't really exist or are ineffective. Usually broken means that there is no good counterplay or that the metagame is warped around that single mechanic or entity.
A good test to measure when something is broken is to ask the question: in any situation, would I just rather be playing "X broken thing" over pretty much anything else?
"Would I rather just play Ancestral Recall here over anything else?" Most likely no.
They've said before that most people, probably newer players, always feel way worse when their spell gets countered than when it gets killed by a removal spell. I think it has to do with removal being at least somewhat narrow where counterspells aren't, and there's something about it actually hitting the board and passing the turn vs it just going straight to the yard.
I personally think the design team shouldn't care about that. Blue and counterspells have been a part of magic since the beginning. I don't get why people complaining about counterspells have any merit. Counterspell should be apart of Modern, I don't really see why it shouldn't
Its not what they want. They want an interactive deck that can leverage skill
Where was all the spirits to hold down the Combo though?
Also KCI in a Thopter Sword deck is much different and much worse. The reason why Ironworks is so good is because of how hard it is to hate out. Graveyard hate hardly hurts them. There's a reason why Thopter Sword is nowhere to be seen
Partial mulliganing like in Hearthstone might be a bad solution, but the game is extremely different. In poker, for example, if you get a bad hand you just fold, essentially losing nothing. In magic, you can literally lose the game outright from one mulligan
I haven't thought about it, and I'm not a game tester for Wizards, so I don't know the solution, but something really needs to change again for mulliganing. The fact that card advantage is not only the most important part of the game, it is also the hardest thing to obtain. The fact that bad luck/ variance that can be super common can cause a minus one card advantage out of the gate so easily, makes no sense that it is implemented in the game.
Well theres Blasphemous Act
I do. People just hate combo. That's it
I also hope that when I do brew my next combo deck, a card wont get banned again, since I guess if my combo deck is on the same level as trash-nauseum, then people wont cry about it. Or I can just go back to storm, and let people cry for a grapeshot ban like they did a year ago
I didn't play during Alliances, but I actually disagree that FoW is too powerful for Standard. I only know the card in the context of powered up formats like Legacy, Vintage, and Cube. I can imagine a format where the power is lower, and control isn't even that powerful, which isn't that uncommon when it comes to Standard. FoW has major drawbacks.
And so what if it is? Right now Teferi is being designed around straight up, what's the difference if its Force of Will (or any other Blue card) instead? In my opinion, Teferi is a more powerful card than Force of Will in a format that can actually tap out on 5 and not die. At the end of the day, FoW is still just a counterspell with -1 card advantage
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1370143#paper
this is my current list
A good test to measure when something is broken is to ask the question: in any situation, would I just rather be playing "X broken thing" over pretty much anything else?
"Would I rather just play Ancestral Recall here over anything else?" Most likely no.
I personally think the design team shouldn't care about that. Blue and counterspells have been a part of magic since the beginning. I don't get why people complaining about counterspells have any merit. Counterspell should be apart of Modern, I don't really see why it shouldn't